


Human

by tsuchan55



Series: Metal and Smoke [1]
Category: Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles
Genre: Although Derek doesn't know they're related, Incest, M/M, Takes place after season 2 finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-24
Updated: 2012-07-24
Packaged: 2017-11-10 14:51:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/467519
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tsuchan55/pseuds/tsuchan55
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John's finding the future harder to live in than he thought-especially when his father's around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers up to 2x22.

The future is not what he expected.

It smells like metal and smoke, a strong taste at the back of his mouth that is impossible to wash away with the tepid water or the gruel that they get served for meals. The sounds are all the same, murmured conversations between the children, sitting quietly in the tunnels, their eyes old and dull but not dead.

Not dead, because John knows, and promises himself that they will win this war, and these children will be adults in a world where there are no machines. He can remember studying prehistoric times in a history class in one school, somewhere, sometime, and the lack of machinery sounds ideal to him, a perfect world a thousand million years ago.

He goes out to fight.

Nobody knows him now, not even his own father - a different time, different place, but Kyle is alive, and sometimes catches John staring, a hungry kind of gaze that only makes the other man confused and uncomfortable. 

The other man.

Kyle is only a few years older than he is, John figures, and he looks away to hide his face, and Derek is there. Derek, John has discovered, is pretty protective over his brother. He doesn't even try to hide it. It must be a sibling thing, John thinks, because Kyle can certainly take care of himself.

John has been outside with him- he knows all too well just what Kyle grew up having to handle- and he understands how Derek is so protective.

The machines are everywhere. Sometimes, his ears ring with the aftereffects of a bomb, and John wakes with a start and a muffled noise that he will _not_ classify as a yelp of any kind, and Derek will be there, cleaning his guns on his bed next to Kyle's. They never talk about it, but John feels the man's eyes on his profile as he sits up, tries to catch his breath, flinches involuntarily at the next muffed boom that shakes through the tunnels.

"John Connor, huh?" Derek says to him one day, and jerks his head to indicate he follow. "Come with me."

He's impressed them all with his knowledge, John knows. He's found a way to insert himself into the top band of leaders of the main head quarters simply because he knows so much- so much better than anyone seems to expect from some boy appearing in the middle of nowhere, with no records of any earlier existence. They keep meticulous records on births, rare events, and deaths- much more common.

He hasn't seen the robot named John Henry- or its creator. He's almost forgotten to look for them. He's seen Cameron- or rather, Allison, as she's known, but she barely looks at him, her eyes follow Kyle Reese with the same intensity that John's do, and then one night, Kyle doesn't return to his bed.

Derek isn't even alarmed.

John suspects Derek always knows what Kyle's up to. He wonders if Derek knew, in another future, if John had been the one to send Kyle back. He wonders if Derek grudges him the decision, but that's silly because the Derek he knew is dead, and this Derek is the same, but different.

This Derek watches him with the same kind of intensity that John watches Kyle- or maybe more like Allison and Kyle, and John lies back on his bed and stares up at the ceiling. It's part metal, part earth, and the dirt makes his eyes sting, irritated, even as the sole lightbulb sways and flickers weakly. The humming buzzing sound of failing electricity sounds too loud.

It's quiet without Kyle's conversation to keep the flow of murmuring up in the room.

John finds he doesn't like the quiet.

"Where's Kyle?" he asks, even though he thinks he knows.

Derek doesn't answer for a moment, and then quietly puts the gun down on his bed, his fingers grazing over the dull black metal lightly, almost caressingly. John only realises he's watching when he notices Derek watching him staring, and he looks away again, back to the ceiling where clods of dirt are coming unstuck. 

Derek doesn't answer for a minute, and then the bed springs squeak, the mattress creaking as the man gets up and moves to sit at the foot of John's bed. "I've seen you watch him. He's not like that."

His brow hitches, and John sits up a little, propping himself up on his elbows. "I'm not- It's not what you think," he mumbles, stumbling over a believable explanation because he doesn't want to tell Derek, doesn't want to mention Cameron and his mother, still left in the past, still trying to stop Skynet even though John suspects- John _knows_ now, that it's hopeless.

They will win, he tells himself. Humans _will_ win, but to stop Judgement Day all together- it seems impossible. 

"Then what's it like?" Derek asks, and his voice is gruff. He doesn't want to be talking about this, but John has felt the way the man watches him, and he suspects Derek can't help needing to know. Just needing to know-

"I had a girlfriend," John blurts, and almost kicks himself for mentioning it, because Derek sits back, and John hadn't even realised he'd been leaning forward, closer. "She- she was killed."

It sounds simple and heartless when he says it like that, as if that could even hope to convey the whole charade with Riley and Jesse, and what Derek had done in spite of John's orders. There is no Jesse here, John realises suddenly, and frowns. "She was... tricked," he adds, simplifying it a great deal, and barely looks up as Derek's hand lands on his shoulder, squeezing in what he can only assume is comfort.

He doesn't mention his mother, or Cameron, or the way she had felt, soft skin over hard, unforgiving metal, very little comprehension in her eyes even whilst trapped between two cars, screaming and screaming that she-

Derek shakes him. 

"Hey- hey, it's all right," he says, when John blinks at him, startled. He isn't expecting the reassurance, and Derek's hand is human all the way through. He imagines that he can feel real bone, and muscle, and Derek isn't a machine.

Derek is _alive_ , and the world is in hell, and John doesn't think as he pushes up, sitting up properly, leaning in to press their mouths together.

Derek is a soldier. The man could have pulled away, has trained reflexes that should have had him seeing the move from even before John sat up, but he doesn't. He doesn't move an inch, doesn't even really kiss back until John lifts a hand out of frustration to clench his fingers in Derek's shirt, twisting the material in his hand. It is warm and damp, and Derek smells like sweat and dirt and that sweet, copper smell of metal that no one in this future can ever be rid of, but god John just wants to cleanse himself of it all.

He pulls back to stare at the older man, his breath snagging in his throat like a teenager, but he hasn't felt like that in years- doesn't think he's ever really been a teenager, or a child, and John doesn't flinch away from the churning turmoiled heat in Derek's eyes.

Then Derek leans forward, and his mouth is hot and demanding, his fingers tight on John's shoulder as John makes an involuntary noise, muffled into the older man's mouth, and this is his uncle, he shouldn't be doing this but Derek is also human- _human_ , and his heat is very real, the muscles and bones under his skin delicate in the way that machines never will be, however strong Derek is.

Derek pushes him down and back, shifts to settle his weight evenly on the bed and over John, and John tangles his fingers in Derek's shirt, digging his nails into the older man's skin above his collar, knowing the thin scratches that will appear and he arches up against the older man, reveling in the feel of his skin, the touch and heavy strong weight of his body because Derek is alive, and so is he, and they don't know how long it might last, but it doesn't matter.

Because they are human, and they **will** win. 

Derek kisses him hard, one hand dragging up under John's shirt, his fingers hot against John's stomach, and the flickering light goes out.


End file.
